


The Only Ten I See

by aroacewritingplace



Series: Parley Tumblr Prompts [8]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: An Overuse of Pickup Lines, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Peter Parker, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Developing Relationship, Flirting, Gay Panic, M/M, Pick-Up Lines, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19835746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroacewritingplace/pseuds/aroacewritingplace
Summary: tumblr ask: can you write fluff #13? love your writing!13. “Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?”





	The Only Ten I See

“How do you flirt with someone?” Peter asked.

Ned looked up from his phone in surprise, mouth dropping open in shock for a second before saying, “Dude, we’re nerds. Why would you think I would know how to flirt with someone?”

MJ looked up from her book. “Skip the flirting and just ask Harley out. It’s obvious you’re both into each other.”

Peter sputtered. “What- no, I mean, there’s no way he likes me like that, I just- I want to find out? If he does? So I want to try flirting with him.”

“You like Harley?” Ned asked, a tad too loudly. Peter cringed and looked around the cafeteria, but thankfully no one was paying attention to their table.

“Dude, keep your voice down! Yes, okay. I do. But I don’t know how to flirt with him. I mean, the only other person I’ve ever tried to talk to like that was Liz, and well, that ended pretty bad, so-”

“Outside circumstances,” MJ reminded Peter. “That had nothing to do with your flirting skills.”

Peter looked past his two friends and found Harley, walking back to their table with a bottle in hand. “Okay, seriously, how do you flirt. And no, MJ, I’m not just going to ask him out, that’s-” He shook his head. “That’s way too forward, I can’t do that.”

“I think he’d pick up on that faster than-”

“Pickup lines!” Ned blurted. “If you can’t come up with something original to say, try- try some of those.”

MJ made a disgusted noise and buried her head in her book again, but Peter could hardly pay attention to that because Harley had reached their table.

“They were out of regular lemonade,” he said in an annoyed tone as he swung his legs over the bench to sit next to Peter. “Sucks that they always run out of stuff on Fridays.”

Peter stared at him with an open mouth, brain blanking like it usually did when Harley was around.

“What did you get instead?” Ned asked, shooting Peter a funny look.

“Dunno. Some cherry limeade drink,” Harley said, shaking the reddish liquid slightly.

“That crap tastes like cold medicine,” MJ said bluntly.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks,” Harley replied, twisting the cap off. He took a swig, and his face creased slightly. “You’re right, it does sorta taste like shitty cough medicine. You wanna try, Peter?”

He turned to look at Peter, bringing the bottle with him, and Peter’s brain began running a mile a minute, mind unfreezing and tongue moving-

“Are you from Tennessee?”

MJ’s head slammed on the lunch table, and Ned made a choked noise. Harley’s nose scrunched up before saying. “What- yes, you know I’m from Tennessee?”

“Because- because you’re the only ten I see,” Peter was sure his face was bright red at this point, and Harley just looked at him in complete shock before melting into a grin.

“Are we having a pick-up line competition today? Is that what this is?”

Peter blinked and saw MJ shaking with laughter diagonal from him.

“Hey, darlin’, are you a broom? ‘Cause you just swept me off my feet,” Harley said smoothly. Peter gaped at him, heart beating faster than before. Harley held his eyes for a second before dissolving into giggles, looking at the other two. “What else do y’all got?”

Ned stared at Harley disbelievingly before cutting his eyes across to Peter. Peter shook his head ever so slightly and shrugged, both amazed and confused by the turn his plan was taking.

MJ set down her book and turned to look at Ned. “Hey, Ned, if you were a drug, I’d overdose on you.”

Peter sent a silent thank you to MJ as Ned tilted his head in confusion. “Thank… you? I think?”

“Hm.” MJ hummed. “Maybe it doesn’t work as well on people you aren’t attracted to.”

“Hey, I’m a catch!” Ned protested. “Hey, MJ, uh, if I could rearrange the alphabet-”

“You’d put U and I together?” she finished, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Don’t steal my pickup lines, that was a good one.”

“Yeah, use it on someone who isn’t a lesbian.”

The lunch continued much like that, throwing cheesy pickup lines back and forth. Peter joined in a few times, though his pickup lines were directed at Ned more often than not because at least with Ned he didn’t have to worry about anything. Harley tossed lines evenly between the other three, though whenever he spoke to Peter he resisted the urge to shiver and the intent look in Harley’s eyes as he spoke. 

A few days later after school, the two of them were working in their lab together, Peter running some equations for some upgraded webs, and Harley bouncing between tinkering on his suit and programming his AI. Peter’s fingers shook slightly as he wrote out another equation because he had a few pickup lines on his mind and he was determined to use them. 

“Hey, H-Harley.”

If Harley had heard the stutter, he didn’t comment. He didn’t even look up from where he was fiddling with the open panel of the suit’s arm. “What’s up?”

Peter took a deep breath, channeling Spider-Man’s confidence as he said breezily. “Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got fine written all over you.”

Harley’s movements slowly momentarily, but he only distractedly said, “That’s a good one,” before his fingers began to move again. “Are we continuing the competition from the other day?”

“Nah,” Peter said before he could think it through. “Just, uh, wanted to try out some lines.”

He could see the way Harley’s frown creased his face from across the room. “Why… you know what, never mind.”

Peter ignored the way his heart sunk with panic, and he resumed working for a few minutes until he got his shuddering breaths under control. 

“Do your feet hurt?”

Harley did look up this time. “No? Why would they-”

“‘Cause you’ve been running through my mind all day.” Peter honestly wasn’t sure what else to do at this point.

Harley exhaled a laugh through his nose. “That one was just cheesy.”

Peter licked his lips, shutting the tablet off with a quiet click. “Do you have a band-aid?” Maybe he’d get the hint if he did it again.

Harley’s eyes darted down to his legs, alarmed. “What? Why?”

“Because I hurt my knee when I fell for you.”

“Oh.” Harley laughed again. “Oh, okay. Yeah. Nice one.”

Peter’s heart was pounding so fast he could feel it in his ears, but he surged ahead with the last one on his mind, standing up suddenly. “Hey, uh, if I bit my lip-”

“Are you flirting with me?” Harley interjected suddenly. 

Peter’s eyes flared wide open, and he nearly fell against the lab counter. “You finally noticed?”

“I- wait, you’re serious? This is you flirting?” Harley’s lips were twitching, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth.

Peter’s lips twisted into a frown. Was Harley making fun of him? “Would you believe me if I said it was Ned’s idea?” His heart was sinking because it couldn’t be more clear to him in this exact moment what Harley thought of him.

“Using pickup lines? Yeah. The flirting? I sure hope it wasn’t his idea.”

Peter’s eyes bulged with surprise, but there was no way- “No! No, that- that was my idea.”

“Thank goodness. It’d be really awkward to have to tell Ned that I’m into his best friend and not him.”

“Yeah.” Peter’s voice sounded strangled to his own ears. “Yeah, that’d sure be unfortunate.” His head pounded with the quickening rhythm of his heartbeat.

A heavy silence hung in the room as both boys stared at each other, expectations and apprehensions clear in their expressions.

Harley cleared his throat, shocking both of them back to the present. “So, uh…”

“Um.”

“You gonna finish that pickup line? I already know the ending, but I’d love to hear you say it.”

Peter inhaled quickly and took a step closer to Harley. There wasn’t all that much space between them, maybe less than a few paces. “If I bit my lip, would you kiss it better?”

Harley’s lips quirked up in a smile and he reached out, grabbing the hem of Peter’s shirt to pull him close. Peter squeaked as he nearly fell on top of Harley, bracing his arm against the counter to keep himself from falling into Harley’s lap.

“Did the gravity increase in here, or are you just falling for me?” Harley asked, lips a breath away from Peter’s own.

Peter tilted his head so that their noses brushed together. “You don’t need any pickup lines to get me to fall for you,” he laughed before closing the distance between them.

**Author's Note:**

> i've never flirted with anyone in my life LMAO  
> I do asks n stuff on my tumblr: the-end-of-endgame  
> one day i'll figure out how to link that stuff, but not today


End file.
